David Williams, award-winning journalist who edited four newspapers

How Williams marked winning the 1984 journalist of the year award in the Argus

David Williams, who has died aged 81, was an award-winning editor who crossed backwards and forwards from Fleet Street to the regional and local press.

He achieved his greatest success as editor of the Brighton Argus and is also deserving of mention for having been the launch editor in 1969 of a regional daily that endures to this day, the Basildon/Southend (Evening) Echo.

Williams, who edited the Argus from 1978 to 1985, was in charge when the Grand Hotel was bombed by the IRA in October 1984 during the Conservative party conference in order to assassinate Margaret Thatcher.

He rose to the occasion by producing special editions of the paper and - in company with his reports on the Ethiopian famine - it won him the journalist-of-the-year award.

Generously, Williams celebrated the award in his own newspaper by paying tribute to his colleagues by headlining the story "Journalists of the year! Teamwork brings the Argus a top honour" over a picture of the whole staff.

Williams, born in 1932 in Risby, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, left his grammar school at 16 to join the Bury Free Press as a trainee reporter.

After national service, he was a reporter for the Wisbech Advertiser, Kentish Times and a London news agency before becoming a sub-editor on the South Wales Argus.

A spell on the Manchester Evening News was followed by his arrival in Fleet Street in 1955, on the subs' desk of the Daily Mirror. Like so many subs in those days, he moved around from title to title, with stints on the Daily Herald, London Evening Standard and The (pre-Murdoch) Sun.

In what was then a surprising move, he left the national arena in 1965 to become editor of the South-East London Mercury and, four years later, became founding editor of the Basildon-based Evening Echo.

He spent nine years at the Essex paper, and his professional approach secured an audience that ensured the paper's longevity (unlike many other titles launched in towns on the fringes of London in that period).

Williams left there for the Argus and it's probably fair to say that he remains the best editor that paper ever had in the modern era. Many young journalists benefited from his demanding regime, appreciating his sense of humour and poking fun at his penchant for afternoon naps.

The Argus's veteran reporter and columnist, Adam Trimingham, is quoted in his paper as saying:

"David was always at his best when dealing with the big stories. When the bombing happened, he immediately grasped the enormity of the situation. He knew immediately that this was the biggest story ever printed in The Argus.

But he always claimed his biggest achievement was to get a sofa installed in the editor's office so he could catch 40 winks during the day."

Williams's skilful bomb coverage drew him to Fleet Street's attention and The People's editor, Ernie Burrington, invited him in 1985 to be his deputy.

That led three years later to his joining the planning group for the launch of Robert Maxwell's The European. But he didn't stay on, choosing instead to go back to where it all began for him - taking the chair at the Bury Free Press, his fourth editorship.

Williams is also remembered for his presidency in 1992-3 of the then Guild of Editors, later helping in its transformation into the Society of Editors.